Day: October 2, 2013

I succumbed to the Siren call of the mystery quilt. Just like Jason and the Argonauts or Odysseus or the sailors passing Die Lorelei, I couldn’t resist their call and am working on the Scrapitude Mystery Quilt.

The Scrapitude Mystery Quilt was created by Sandy’s friend charlotte after the ladies in their guild begged. Sandy put out the [Siren] call and many of The Twilters joined in. I found an already cut batch of 2.5″ squares, so I joined as well. Lame reasoning, I have to say, because there are a whole bunch of other shapes I need to cut as well.

Scrapitude First 4 Patches

It turned out to be good, though, because I needed something easy where I could accomplish a lot in a short amount of time.

I only had about 3 hours to sew yesterday and was able to finish 25 four patches and make a huge dent in the 112 I still need to make.

One of the first sewing directions was to make 25 four patches out of the foreground fabric (e.g. not the background). I found a container of 2.5 squares I had cut sometime ago and started out with those. I was able to make good progress and finish the first 25 pretty quickly.

2.5″ Squares

The next 112 would be a little harder and I knew that before even starting the sewing. Part of the difficulty was that I hadn’t, yet, picked a background. Fortunately there were enough dots with white backgrounds already cut to sell me on the idea of dots as a background. I toyed with the idea of blacks on whites, but went with the dots. There aren’t enough dots in my life ever. 😉

There were a lot of orange squares in the container, so, periodically, I rummaged through my scrap bins and cut some other colors. A lot of what I was cutting were greens. It is fun delving into my scrap bin. First, I use up scraps, which is always a bonus. Second, I enjoyed thinking about the fabrics through which I was rummaging and the original projects for which they were used. I found a lot of Philip Jacobs prints and joyfully cut those up to use.

112 4 Patches in Progress

Now I have about half of the 112 finished. I have had to use some yardage for the background, but I have plenty of dots, so it is ok.

Sandy has a tutorial on her blog on making 4-patches. Nonnie pointed out a very interesting 4-patch tutorial on the NZ blog, Bee in my Bonnet. I have not tried this tutorial and she doesn’t give sizes, so I don’t know how it works. It looks cool, though.

Why Should You Care: Perhaps you want to join in or use the directions for an activity for your guild?